Canon 5D II with Sigma 50mm f1.4DG A – 1/30s f2.2 ISO400
thank you for visiting,
ludwig
sigma 50mm F1.4 DG HSM Art
Shadow play
beauty, Nude, portraitI brought a mosquito net into my studio space. I installed it on the attic.
We fooled a bit around with the bright light that drops into this space when the sun is coming in. The shadow creates a second person in the space. I kinda liked how the shadow and the original interacted with each other.
Summer has been too short
Nude, Personal PicturesHi,
I enjoyed working in my new location the last couple of weeks. It is spacious, very quiet and private, it has a lot of windows, and a large amount of possibilities for different shooting environments. Unfortunately the summer is swiftly passing away, and with the colder days coming in, models probably are going to get goose-bumps again. Difficult to retouch, not pleasant for the model.
That is what I’m missing the most in our Belgian climate. Rather than being half summer half winter, we only have 2 months of summer, the rest of the year is half fall half winter.
I had two shoots last Friday, you should get images from them very soon. This one is from earlier this summer.
Enjoy 🙂
1/50s f2.0 ISO 320
Canon 5D II with Sigma 50 mm
come again soon,
ludwig
An afternoon at Hotel Hancelot – Pauline.
beauty, Personal PicturesI think you know Pauline by now. I love working with her. She’s nice, beautiful, she can be herself or she can put on a role, she’s punctual and joyful. I noticed I never published a color image from this shoot. It’s a shame, because they came out good in color too. Enjoy:
Images taken with Canon 5D mark II and Sigma 50 mm 1.4 (first image) and Canon 100 mm 2.8 Macro. – All available light.
thank you for visiting,
Ludwig
The Castle shoot – digital
beauty, Nude, Personal PicturesNice environment, nice weather, nice model, …
first time in this place, and as I tend to not prepare so much for a shoot it is always a search for an approach. This place has tons of possibilities, …
Eline was worried about her figure, as a lot of women do. I’m happy that I have been able to surprise her with some eye-dropping images. What do you think?
All images Canon 5D II with sigma 50 mm f1.4 or Canon 135mm f2.0.
thank you for watching,
ludwig desmet
Interim model – Eline at the storage room.
beauty, Personal PicturesA good week ago I had a cancelled photo shoot appointment. So I had a free moment for photography and no model. A quick call on facebook soon resulted in an interested replacement model. In her introduction message on FB she said. ” … and I’m not shy” as a reply to my call that ended with the words “Don’t be shy”. That was the day before the shoot.
Eline never posed before, and although not shy, a bit nervous anyway. We have worked over several locations, of which the old storage room was the first. A very dark environment, with a lot of dust and dirt, but Eline didn’t matter and went for it all the way.
Thank you Eline, for being my interim model for a day, you did very well.
All images: Canon 5D mark II, with Sigma 50 mm f1.4 DG Art.
To be continued …
ps. in a reaction, Eline wrote me:
I can’t express enough my appreciation for your work. I have absolutely no regrets in being your ‘interim model’. Your approach is unbelievably professional and you know how to cover up my physical flaws by guiding me into the right poses. …
Ludwig
Big black hat, the series. Marion (NSFW)
beauty, Nude, Personal PicturesMarion never posed before, but she contacted me as she loved the images she had seen with Pauline. She listened carefully to my instructions, working for a natural and beautiful look, and we ended up with this result. I am really proud of this shoot, this is only a small part of the entire selection, with a white blouse and a black hat as the main props.
It was the first time I worked in this location. A beautiful house, with an annex ancient building. The weather was great, although very bright sunlight doesn’t make it easier to work within the dynamic range of the sensor.Nut the sun kept Marion warm and cosy as she got partially undressed on this spring morning.
Have you noticed how I rarely have my models interact with me? I think this is part of my style, and one secret to creating intimate, natural looking images.
I shot a couple of rolls of film too on this shoot, these images will follow later on.
thank you for watching, I hope you liked the images.
Ludwig
Clair-Obscur, or playing with light
beauty, people, Tips and TricksWhen I met Pauline at a hotel room in Ghent, the sun was shining brightly. This led to a difficult light situation, with very high contrasts in the room. (Contrast ratio 10/1 sunlit: 1/500s f2.0 ISO100 – shadow: 1/50s f2.0 ISO100) You either have to stay out of direct sunlight, or be very careful working into it. The key here is to make sure that your exposures are good for the sunlit areas, and certainly not overexposed. This can be done by spot metering the lit area’s and fixing your exposure to that metering. This gives you dramatic contrasts, and a perfect light situation for the ‘hide and reveal’ kind of images. The situation became even more tricky later on, as thick clouds began to block the light more often than not. All images with Canon 5D II and Sigma 50 mm f1.4 Art.
I loved working with Pauline, she’s full of character, she has confidence in me as a photographer, and she’s willing to play with the camera. Of course her drama lessons add a lot to that.
see you soon for some analog images from this same shoot. I shot two rolls of T-Max 400 film that same afternoon.
Ludwig
Sarah at Sabines house – Part I – The artists’ studio. (Nudity involved)
beauty, Nude, Personal Pictures———- 2015 ————
Well I think I should start by giving you all my best wishes for 2015. Good health, a warm shelter and caring people around you, some personal challenges, and the time you need to help develop yourself to a richer being. (not financially speaking, … I think)
I have decided for myself to sell my 3D rendering business, in favor of my photography work. Let’s see what happens next. 😉
This blog had 49.931 views from 9.994 visitors during 2014. You are not alone out there, thank you for following my work! The fact that you are reading these words means you are still there. I would like to repeat that if you have a particular question or request, just ask.
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I asked Sabine if she felt ok about me photographing a model in her studio, and without hesitation she said ‘sure, no problem’. I think Sabine is not really aware yet what exceptional work she makes. She has an amazingly strong and expressive pencil, and she mainly works with the human body as a subject. She is preparing an exhibit for late spring, so her studio is packed with finished works, works in progress, and full of idea’s that are waiting to get realized.
I had Sarah as a model. A thin, almost breakable figure, that contrasted extremely well with the robust paintings all around her. She agreed to pose topless/naked based on a discussed mood board. She did really well, but she got cold really quickly (‘as she always does’ she told me).
I had an awful mix of light sources, which forced me to work only black and white here (cool light coming from a rainy day, Tungsten spots in the ceiling, a phosphorescent lamp over the work bench, and a neutral daylight source Sabine uses to finish off her paintings. This means there is no way to get a proper white balance for all these sources, and you can not correct the different light colors afterwards properly.
Anyway, here are the images. For the technical details: Canon 5D II with Sigma 50 mm f1.4 DG Art and Canon 24 mm f1.4 L II. ISO from 320 to 500, shutter speeds from 1/10th to 1/30th of a second (train yourself to get a stable hand 😉 ) and apertures f2.0 – f2.2.
Thank you Sarah, for your confidence and cooperation, thank you not caring about the cold, thank you for coming to Ronse this rainy day.
Thank you Sabine, for saving my day (two other locations became unavailable very last minute) and for letting me into your home. Thank you for sharing your ideas and work.
Roselien at House Adelaide
beauty, Personal PicturesRoselien has long legs, no even longer, …
She contacted me recently because she had seen my work, and she loved the ‘full of character and emotion’ part of my photography. I think I need to write that down, for future speeches.
She volunteered to be a model if I needed one. I think Roselien proved to be a model able of expressing emotion and character herself. On top of that she has very intriguing eyes, very pale almost like those snow dogs (husky). Oh and those legs, endle(g)ss they seem. We had fun working together on a dull and gray afternoon end october.
All images shot on Canon 5D mark II and with Sigma 50 mm f1.4 Art and Canon 100 mm f2.8 L IS Macro.
Thank you for watching, see you soon!
Ludwig
Lisa at the Mansion – preview
beauty, Personal PicturesA single image to get you all warmed up for the next few posts. Lisa at the Mansion. We met trough Facebook, we have tried to fix a date for a shoot on several occasions in the last two years, and then finally, at the end of august, Lisa came to Ronse for a beauty shoot. She did absolutely wonderful, I can’t wait to show you the results. The image below has received a 97.4 score by the 500px.com audience, and there’s a lot more images that have the same amount of tenderness, beauty and sensuality. Come back again really soon, and enjoy the rest of this wonderful afternoon photo session. Lisa told me when she saw the pictures: ‘amazing, that with so little equipment, you can produce this kind of result’. A great compliment for my available light photography, and another proof that you don’t need a ton of gear to produce beautiful images.
Image taken with the Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG Art 1/80 – f2.0 – ISO200
Paris strolling
Personal Pictures, streetI had the chance to finish these summer holidays with a 4 day leisure weekend in Paris, together with my wife.
We normally carry our bikes on this kind of city trip, and this time it was no different. We remembered well from 7 years ago that biking trough Paris was ok, except for the weather (last time we did it it rained four consecutive days).
We had better luck this time, with four sunny days, only a bit of rain one evening.
We had no special plans for this holiday, except seeing Paris not the tourist way, but just enjoying what we get to see, and trying different routes than the Champs-Elysees or visiting the Eiffel tower. So we just rode our bikes trough the city, with no particular plan.
We enjoyed the calm of the Père-Lachaise Cimetary and the charming buzz in the Rue Saint-André des Arts, we went to Bois de Boulogne, came back trough La Défense business centre, had some really nice food just down the hill of Sacré-Cœur, enjoyed seeing the ships go trough the Canal Saint-Martin, the small streets of Le Marais and the marketplace on Boulevard Richard Lenoir.
Enjoy the images, I hope you can feel some of the atmosphere in these places shine trough.
For those interested, all images taken with the Sigma 50 mm 1.4 DG, on my Canon 5D mark II.
thank you for watching, come again soon.
Ludwig
Pauline M. at the Mansion
UncategorizedPauline is studying to be a drama artist. She also has some experience with photography. She contacted me trough a model website where I have some portfolio images. She’s originally from Liège, but residing in Brussels.
I loved working with her, she does not have the typical model figure, and although she was a bit shy at first she posed very easily and naturally, and that is mainly what I’m looking for in models.
We worked trough the afternoon, first at The Mansion, then at the Garden of Eden. I’m very happy to have some exquisite locations really nearby, as this gives me the possibility to combine as the day evolves, and eventually as the weather changes. I’m still thinking about finding some additional locations for extra variety and possibilities. Not an easy thing to do, but I’m working on it.
Pauline brought a friend for make-up, and my wife did her hair. She made me think of a classic film diva in some of the images.
I’ll post the images in two series, The Mansion first. The house has been decorated with new curtains lately, and I’m happily making use of them.
Gear list: Canon 5D II, Canon 100mm f2.8 macro IS L, Canon 24mm f1.4 L, Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG.
Hope you like the images, come back soon for Pauline at the Garden of Eden.
Table Top Nude II
beauty, erotic, Personal PicturesStyling and photography by me.
Make up and model: Anna Orlova
Limited edition prints available.
Table Top Nude II
Soon more images from the shoot with Tatjana, and also a series of analog images from that shoot.
thanks for viewing!
Battle of the 50’s Part II – Canon 50 mm f1.4 USM vs. Sigma 50 mm f1.4 DG HSM Art
Personal Pictures, photo gear, testsA lot of good rumors about the Sigma 50mm Art that was announced for the end of April. I have decided to order one as soon as it was available here in Belgium, and I wanted to do a comparison between this praised newcomer and the 50 mm f1.4 I have been using since about two years. (see battle of the 50’s for a comparison between Canon’s cheap (fantastic plastic) 50 mm f1.8 and the second in line 50mm f1.4 from Canon as well)
So this time a comparison between the Sigma 50mm f1.4 DG HSM Art and the Canon EF 50 mm f1.4 USM.
Both aimed at the full frame market, a rather old design for the Canon, brand new for the Sigma, part of the ‘Art’ series of new lenses from the latter.
In my photography I often have to deal with difficult light situations (I mostly work with natural light only) in dim lit interiors. I so have decided a couple of years ago to mainly go with fixed focal length lenses with big apertures. I currently have a Canon 24 mm f1.4 L II, a 50 mm f 1.4 (Canon and Sigma, although the Canon has already been sold and will be transferred to its new owner as soon as this test is over) a Canon 85 mm f1.8, a Canon 100 mm f2:8 macro (NEW) and a Canon 135 mm f2.0 L. A lot of glass and a lot of weight in my photo bag.
Additional weight for this 50 mm lens from Sigma too, compared to the Canon f1.4 (290 g) the Sigma comes at 815 grammes, meaning a lot more weight to carry. In combination with the Canon 5D mark II I use, this combo weighs about 1700 grams all together. My wife complained about the weight when I had her review the images of my last shoot.
The design of the Sigma lens is definitely more attractive, with is matte finish and sleek all black no colors approach. It comes with a hood and caps, and a square semi-hard lens case. The price here in Belgium is 839 € (Art & Craft pre-order) while the Canon comes at 339 € at the same shop.
All images for this test have been taken in my backyard or home studio, no special things going on here, except for young vegetable sprouts struggling against the spring rains we had lately.
As far as needed, all images are taken with tripod, live view magnification for focussing and with the same 5D II camera. Self timer to prevent touch shake.
The images show the entire scene on top, 100% crops from unedited images (except standard sharpening in LR5) below. The aperture setting is mentioned on every crop. All Jpg’s are saved at 100% quality. Take care, some of these images are big! All these images are for informational purpose only, no legal claims made!
You should really look at the images full size to be able to judge on the results obtained!
Sharpness center and edge:
Left to right: Canon center sharpness, Sigma center sharpness, Canon edge sharpness, Sigma edge sharpness.
Full size on click, 11.9 Mb Jpg file.
My observations:
Center sharpness Canon: soft wide open, reaches full sharpness at f2.8, stays sharp till f8.0, a little diffraction softening at f16
Center sharpness Sigma: similar sharpness wide open as the Canon at f2.8, small increments of additional sharpness till f8.0, clearly visible diffraction effects at f16
Edge sharpness Canon: strong image distortions in this part of the image at f1.4 and f1.8, as if the image has had a rotational blur, gradually improving image quality, acceptably sharp at f8.0, soft degradation at f16
Edge sharpness Sigma: similarly sharp at f1.4 as the Canon at f1.8, but no distortions, f4.0 similar to Canon at f8.0 and sharpest at f8.0 and better image detail as the Canon at f8.0. More diffraction degradation at f16 than Canon.
Note the strong vignetting on the Canon f1.4 USM when used wide open. Less visible on the Sigma.
Vignetting is becoming invisible at f4.0 for the Canon, at f2.8 for Sigma.
Minimal focussing distance. Sharpness and magnification:
the minimal focus distance for the Canon is 0.45 m, for the Sigma it is at 0.4 m, so a bigger magnification is possible.
Another set of images, both showing the magnification comparison, and a crop showing sharpness with different apertures.
my observations:
similar as previous test, very weak performance at the image edge for Canon, at least one stop better sharpness for the Sigma in both center and edge.
The Sigma lens has however more problems with purple fringing when used wide open (note the hairs on the plant stem). This reminds me of the ‘quick’n dirty 85mm lens test’ I did a couple of years ago, where similar fringing problems where appearing with the Sigma 85 mm f1.4
Chromatic Aberration and color fringe:
I remember from the previous test that the Canon proved horrible in the shots with the branches agains bright background. Let’s see what the Sigma does in comparison. I had no clear sky as the previous time today, but I kind of see the same things happening here.
The Canon f1.4 USM suffers from severe fringing in high contrast areas, when used wide open. (strange that this phenomenon did not show in the plant close up) This is even apparent in live view, making it hard to focus correctly. When stopping down to 2.0, this greatly improves, and then we see similar things in both lenses, the Sigma not noticeably performing better in this aspect, showing purple fringing in front of the focus area, green fringing behind the focus plane.
In both examples in this test however (overcast sky, dull weather) I have noticed very little CA in both lenses, a little bit of cyan-orange at f8.0 in the Canon image close to none in the Sigma. I suppose that in higher contrast situations, that might be worse. (to be confirmed).
Worth noticing in this respect is that the Sigma 50mm Art lens profile is not yet currently available in the standard Lightroom 5.4 upgrade, nor could I find a link to a profile for this lens on the web (may 13, 2014)
Longitudinal CA:
Chromatic aberration that is visible in the unsharp areas in front and behind the sharp area. Not the magenta shift in front of the sharp area, the green shift behind. Both images taken at f2.0. Remarkably higher in the Canon. Note the big difference in sharpness and contrast in the sharp areas between the two of them. Best viewed at 100% of course.
Flare:
Canon to the left, Sigma to the right.
My observations: Do I really need to? It’s obvious I guess.
Bokeh:
Canon to the left, Sigma to the right. I think Sigma’s bokeh is softer and smoother. In the Canon unsharpness, there is still some structure and noise. Not 1/1 images but big enough to analyze.
Thank you for reading, I think I will keep my Sigma, and trade on the Canon.
You are welcome to share this comparative review, I take no responsibilities of any kind 😉
come back again for some real world image samples of this lens in my shoots!
best,
Ludwig